


Inverse Exchange

by kangamangus (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Concerned Sam Winchester, Demon Deals, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 14:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17102408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kangamangus
Summary: He leaves them in each respective room, little notes with handwriting that betrays a new tremor. When Sam finds them, he is a rush of concern andDean, you might have a concussion,andLook at me,but Dean just pushes him away."Stop, Sam." The other syllable doesn't come. Hitches in his throat, lodges there, and remains stuck as Dean forces out the rest. "I'm fine."





	Inverse Exchange

**Author's Note:**

> An old fic I wrote for this prompt: Season 8, during the Trials, Sam gets better, but Dean...he loses himself. He loses the ability to feel. He can't feel joy, can't feel sadness, can't feel pain. He's lost his ability to fear. He can't sleep and his hands shake all the time. He's losing his ability to talk. All he remembers is that he made a deal and he's losing himself piece by piece everyday and he can't even feel sad that Sam will be left with nothing.

No matter how many times he has shot pistols in his life, Dean has never lost the thrill of the feel of having one in his hands. The heavy presence of the metal, the way his grip fits around it, the way the trigger moves as he takes out the slack — he's been shooting for as long as he can remember, since five or six years old, and guns are old buddies for him. Constants, when almost everything else around him shifted so frequently. Best friends in a battle to keep Sam protected on long nights when Dad was supposed to be home, but wasn't — when a stranger knocked on the door and Dean didn't know if it would be kicked open to reveal someone from CPS or the thing that killed Mom. Extensions of himself. 

When he takes the shot, facing off against a chupacabra, Sam down for the count after being rammed, something feels _off_. Wrong. The creature falls to the ground with a cry and stains the dirt with blood and drool, and Dean looks at the gun in his hands. As though it betrayed him — finally. _This, too._

They burn the body and, later, as they are driving over a bridge and the wind is picking up, and Sam is fast asleep in the car, sleeping off a concussion, or the remnants of having been through two and a half trials and back again, or both, Dean pulls over to hold the gun over the side of the bridge. He's interested in the mechanics of letting go, something he has never done before, his hand so alien as it poises itself above the water. As though it belongs to someone else, unattached, free. He opens his grip and then, brief moments later, the deep splash of something destined to sink to a bottom. 

When he turns back to the car, Sam is watching him from the window. 

"Dean," he calls from behind the glass, muffled noise that Dean reads more in lips than actually hears. "What did you do?"

Later, at the bunker, Sam is mumbling about how Dean should get some sleep, won't even crack open a book or a beer because he's so beat, and Dean wonders why everything is moving in the color of _flat line_ and sleep just seems more like a concept than something his body actually needs.

He spends the morning taking inventory — weapons, food, ammunition. Lists are factual. Clean. He leaves them in each respective room, little notes with handwriting that betrays a new tremor, and when Sam finds them, he is a rush of concern and _Dean, you have a concussion_ , and _Look at me_ , and Dean just pushes him away. 

"Stop, Sam." The other syllable doesn't come. Hitches in his throat, lodges there, and remains stuck as Dean forces out the rest. "I'm fine."

This is better, even if he can't write the letter C without making it look more like a G as his hand moves without his consent, even if Dean left one gun off of the list because he set it free to drown, and even if Dean can't really close his eyes anymore. 

It's like being nowhere. He's in the bunker, but he really isn't, Dean reflects as his fingers ghost over the laptop keyboard, moving without typing, feeling the lines of F and J with a jerky movement. It feels like being on an airplane, truly without roots, no planted feet, just _en route_ to go somewhere that it feels like he will never quite reach. Suspension and clouds and a lack of sense of identity because it doesn't matter who you are, in the air, unless you meet ground again. 

"We should go to Japan. A lot of freaky shit comes out of Japan." Dean types _buruburu_ into Google, but his fingers move and spell _burubru_ instead, and Google asks, _Did you mean?_ and yes, Dean meant it. 

"You hate flying," Sam replies matter-of-factly, like this is just another silly idea of Dean's, like Dean is just being _Dean_ , with lofty ideas, smarting off, lining up a joke. 

"Not anymore," Dean replies and he clicks _buruburu_. 

"Right, and I'm ready for another trip to Plucky's." Sam goes back to his reading. Dean wonders why a ghost shares the name as a place in Kenya. Maybe they should go to Kenya, instead. 

Sam notices a day later, when Dean drops a glass and takes a step forward in an effort to find a broom, and when Sam rushes forward with concern and asks, "Dean, stop, what did you do?" Dean realizes that he has shards of glass in his foot.

He can't bring himself to swear, so he tries to tell Sam, _I'm fine,_ but the words don't come, and he shrugs instead. Sam helps him to a chair and takes the pieces out with tweezers, but misses one. Dean can feel it every time he steps, a sharp lump, a presence that isn't so bad when everything else around him is muted.

He loses time somewhere between when Sam is reassuring him that they'll find answers — _no,_ Dean wants to tell him, _you won't_ — and his transition to a third book. He drifts — thoughtless, without boundaries, and it's a little like floating, the way his mind ebbs into nothingness, the way his senses refrain from feeding his brain information. 

Life passes in clips, after that: Sam in front of him, asking him questions. The motion from hall to bedroom. The ceiling, dusty and looming.

"—ean," Sam's voice invades the reverie but doesn't break it. "Dean," again, like a prayer, broken and hopeless and begging. "What did you do?"

A deal. An inverse exchange — one moving forward and one receding. These things come with costs, Sam. 

_I saved you,_ Dean thinks as he drifts away again. 

But he doesn't remember why.


End file.
